You're going to find there are varying extremes for people who own Service Dogs or require them in their daily life to function. Without going into too much on a public board, I currently have a SDit (Service Dog In Training) and hope to have her training finished by the end of February. Without my dog, and her tasks, I wouldn't be able to go out by myself, anywhere, alone.

Even with people who have program dogs, the degree and variety of illnesses and disabilities is such that very few dogs have all of the same tasks.

Every SD is require to have a LEARNED task that mitigates your illness/disability. So a dog that is just there for "comfort" is NOT a legitimate SD, even if the person has a legit disability. The dog must perform a task that in not something the dog will naturally do. The people with the legit disabilities bringing pet dogs places and calling them SDs are called huggers, usually. They have a need for a SD, but their dog doesn't not meet the legal qualifications for a SD. And there ARE legal requirements, that should you ever have to go to court on, you WILL have to prove.

Then you have the people who "fake" a disability so that they can bring their (usually untrained, unruly, uncivilized) dog with them. These are the people that are most likely to cause huge problems for other teams, and the most likely to scream "my dog has a right to be here! he's a SERVICE DOG!!"

Unfortunately for them, they're wrong. The dog has no rights. The disabled person is the one with the rights. So right off the bat, you know they have no idea what exactly they're talking about.

Do you have any specific questions? It's such a broad topic that you could talk all day about it.

There is also a difference between Service Dogs, Therapy Dogs, and Emotional Support Animals.

A lot of times, I think people don't know the difference.

A therapy dog is permitted into a lot of hospitals, or nursing homes, etc, for therapy purposes. An ESA is allowed onto a plane (without paying the fee, and they do not have to stay under your seat the whole time), and often times in apt. buildings, etc, that do not usually allow animals. But you need an official letter from your doctor/psychiatrist.

You know, I've been meaning to ask for a long time. I've seen a sign in a large chain store saying "No Animals allowed" and usually it's followed by something along "except service animals" or somethnig of that nature. But I saw a sign that said no animals and no service animals allowed. It was a grocery store, is that legal?

I always thought it was illegal, but then I thought maybe because it contains a lot of open foods it wasn't, but then I don't know. thoughts?

I wish I could remember the store. Gah, I'll ask David the name of it.

It's not legal to exclude SDs. Anywhere except where allowing them would cause a fundamental alteration of the environment (sterile labs, places that make microchips, ect) A grocery store is not it.

That's what I thought, is there some place to report places who deny SD entrance? If so, I'll get the name from David, might ahve him run there to make sure they still have the sign up and report them.